tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807403883562053852.post7977040574794614125..comments2017-08-17T16:14:37.732-06:00Comments on Clayton Cramer.: Why Public Opinion Surveys Require Large Bags of SaltClayton Cramernoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807403883562053852.post-63539737550157606322017-03-23T10:14:40.867-06:002017-03-23T10:14:40.867-06:00I aim to please. It&#39;s just something I notice...I aim to please. It&#39;s just something I noticed a while back while discussing this online. We used to talk about this kind of stuff back on talk.politics.guns dittybopperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17643950172836401424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807403883562053852.post-56836348179245754872017-03-21T07:58:14.364-06:002017-03-21T07:58:14.364-06:00Thank you. Very useful.Thank you. Very useful.Clayton Cramerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03258083387204776812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807403883562053852.post-34027166539012119272017-03-20T08:05:31.253-06:002017-03-20T08:05:31.253-06:00The GSS has a confusing question: It asks &quot;D...The GSS has a confusing question: It asks &quot;Do you happen to have in your home (IF HOUSE: or garage) any guns or revolvers?&quot;. <br />http://gss.norc.org/Documents/quex/BALLOT1_AREA_2014.pdf<br /><br />That implies handgun ownership to people who are familiar with guns. After all, if someone asked you if you had a &quot;motor vehicle or a convertible&quot;, would you necessarily answer yes if you had a motorcycle or pickup truck? It&#39;s a poorly worded question. Gallup&#39;s question is much better because it merely asks about a gun, not a &quot;gun or revolver&quot;. And Gallup&#39;s question has remained steady at about the 40% rate since around 1996, bouncing up and down.<br />http://www.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx<br /><br />It&#39;s also interesting to note that Gallup&#39;s results dropped from 51% in October 1993 down to 38% in July 1996. What happened during that time? Oh, the Brady Law, the Assault Weapons Ban, Gun Free Schools Act, talk about Brady II, etc. Prior to 1993, the number averaged about 50% of households. <br /><br />It&#39;s my contention that there is a built-in bias against admitting that you own a firearm in about 20% of gun owners that dates back to the actions of the Bill Clinton&#39;s first term. That&#39;s the only way to account for that drop. If you assume that the average gun owning household had just 2 guns, and that the US had about 96 million households, the number of gun owning households dropping from (96 * .51) = ~49 million to (96 * .83) = ~36.5 million, that&#39;s about 25 million guns flooding the used market, at a time when gun manufacturers were running flat out producing new guns.<br /><br />There&#39;s a book in there somewhere.....<br />dittybopperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17643950172836401424noreply@blogger.com